Cutscene

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Cutscenes are non-interactive sequences inserted into the action of a video game. Sometimes also called "cinematics", they are included in almost every modern game that has any kind of story or plot. Sometimes, they can be overused, causing the game to feel more like watching than playing.

Cutscenes can take two forms. They can be produced in-engine, by moving the characters and viewpoint within the game itself. They can also be pre-rendered animations or even live-action videos triggered during certain events.

Pre-rendered cutscenes can contain any content desired, and can be as detailed as your animation studio (or casting budget, as in the Command and Conquer games) will allow. Their drawbacks are the amount of data required to store video files on the game disc, and a noticeable visual difference between the video and the game content. Also, if a character's appearance is subject to change, the cinematic cannot reflect this.

The word "cutscene" itself was possibly first coined by Ron Gilbert while making Maniac Mansion, wherein he defined cutscenes as short "scenes" that "cut" away from the action itself, to show what else was happening in the game world when the player wasn't around.

An in-engine cutscene is by definition a form of Machinima. It will most often have custom movements for the character models that don't occur in normal gameplay. In-engine cutscenes have several innate advantages:

The scenes will look exactly like the rest of the game.

The animation data required to render the scene will take less storage space than the equivalent in video, allowing playback to cover up Loads and Loads of Loading.

They can include interactive elements, like the ability to move the camera or zoom in during the scene.

The main disadvantage to an in-engine cutscene is that you are limited to the capabilities of the game engine itself. However, game engine technology can now do in real time what once took pre-rendering. Detailed and realistic hand and facial animation, camera and lighting tricks, and special effects are all possible within even a relatively old console architecture like the Sony PS2. The difference used to be a much bigger deal in older games; just look at the difference between the models used in the introduction and gameplay sequences of Resident Evil 2 to get an idea.

During the era of "Full Motion Video", a number of games featured cutscenes which were not simply prerendered, but live-action, with (usually not very accomplished) actors playing the roles of the game characters. While this could make the cutscenes look far more like traditional film and television, it also inflated the size of the game: FMV-intense games would run to as many as ten discs for a comparatively short game. It looked as if the advent of DVD-ROM would solve this issue, but just as the DVD-ROM format emerged, FMV was almost totally abandoned in favor of in-engine and pre-rendered cutscenes.

The now-deceased format of "Interactive Movies" used FMV even for in-engine play, and as a result often felt like a near-continuous stream of cutscenes. In a powerful example of what happens when the technology gets ahead of itself, few players have much affection for the format now, making it unlikely that it will make a return in the near future, even though the technology could probably support it far better now.

Presumably, in the future of games, in-engine cutscenes will continue to be the norm. However, many recent games have claimed to do away with cutscenes altogether. Half-Life 2 has many sequences where characters talk to each other and advance the plot, but control of the character is almost never taken away; it's arguable whether the result, frequent impossible to skip sections where you're locked in a room with nothing to do with said control, is actually much of an improvement. Cutscene abuse king Metal Gear Solid added several interactive elements to its story scenes for its third installment.

Some definitions say "cutscene" refers specifically to in-engine segments, and "cinematic" refers to pre-rendered. However, in use they seem to be interchangeable.

Some games notable for their cutscenes:

Data Age's Journey Escape for the Atari 2600 had an animated interpretation of the cover of Journey's 1981 album Escape as one, complete with the intro of "Don't Stop Believin'".

Metal Gear Solid - Pioneered the use of the in-engine cutscene to create cinematic effects. The first game of the series has over three hours of them. The second has closer to seven, including one notorious cutscene which was, literally, an hour long. The fourth game infamously has nine and a half, including the ending that is, again, at least an hour long. Thankfully, the fourth game also finally added the possibility of pausing during the cutscenes.

While not to the same extent as its 2011 follow-up, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is very cinematic as well, and manages to feature them in real time to cope with the limited capacity of the Nintendo GameCube (otherwise, the game would have had to come in two discs).

Karateka and Prince of Persia, both created by Jordan Mechner and originating on the Apple ][. These really invented the in-engine cutscene as we know it. Since the technology was so limited, Mechner used the techniques of the silent movie era to add drama to his ahead-of-the-curve action games.

Bug Eyes 2: Starman to the Rescue (1985, BBC Micro/ZX Spectrum): its infamous "C5 to the rescue" cutscene might be the earliest "annoying and unskippable" example. Just the one scene (Starman walks on, is picked up by a magnet on a string and dropped into a Sinclair C5 which he then drives off in), but repeated so many times over the course of the game.

Blizzard Entertainment's Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo games are renowned for having, at the time of their release, very well-done pre-rendered animation. (The most recent games have truly cutting-edge rendering. Warcraft III has both kinds of cutscene.

The Final Fantasy series (from Final Fantasy VII onward) is known for its extremely high-quality pre-rendered cutscenes. Both the earlier and the later games also make ingenious use of scripted events that take place within the battle screen, a form of in-engine cutscene.

Kingdom Hearts is famous for having as least as much cutscenes as the Final Fantasy series itself. Most of the story is told through them and in many cases they can't be rewatched, or, in the case of the first game, skipped. Most of the cutscenes worked on the game's engine and would include opened or unopened treasure chests, changes in the party's weapons (if Sora attached another keychain to his Keyblade, its appearance would also change in most of the cutscenes) and Sora's drive forms (Whenever he fought in a drive form, but didn't change back before the next cutscene, he would stay in his drive-form in this cutscene, leading to hackers misuse this fact to create cutscenes with Anti-Sora in them). Due to the large use of Disney humor in the games, using Kingdom Hearts cutscenes to create Internet parodies is extremely popular, especially on YouTube.

The first game was also quite notorious for having unskippable cutscenes, which made the fight against Ansem possessed Riku even worse, since he was That One Boss, and the cutscene you'd be watching before fighting him was very long.

Xenosaga has extremely long cutscenes. Some of its cutscene sequences are more than half an hour long. In terms of "LONGEST CUTSCENE EVER", this series is right next to Metal Gear.

A preorder bonus for Xenosaga II allowed for watching and summarizing the first game as one complete cutscene. It lasts for FOUR HOURS.

Super Robot Wars is probably the biggest example of cutscenes ever. It's a strategy game where every single attack resulted in a minute to five minute cutscene showing the resulting battles. And they always worked, mostly because something was actually happening game-wise in the battles.

Homeworld used in-engine cutscenes that would take control away from the player, but not pause the game, leaving the enemy AI a few minutes with complete control of the battlefield. Ships are invincible during cutscenes, but can still be reduced to one unit of health and destroyed the instant the scene ends. For those reasons, it was helpful for a player to memorize cutscene triggers, and put their fleet into a defensive posture before triggering the cutscene. note It can be gamed to your advantage in Mission 4: The Great Wastelands. Shortly after your fleet jumps in, there is a cutscene where the Bentusi traders show up, introduce themselves, and offer to sell you ion cannon technology. Accept or reject their offer and the cutscene ends swiftly, with the Bentusi jumping out to avoid the incoming Turanic raiders. If you don’t accept or reject, the cutscene and the dialogue buttons just stay up. Eventually, the game hurries you along, the raiders draw near and the Bentusi have to go, but you can still click "accept" while they’re saying goodbye. By which time your resource collectors will have cleaned out the system and be returning to safety, and you’ll have resources to build enough ion cannon frigates to destroy the Turanic capital ships easily.

The Valis games relied heavily on cutscenes, though the earliest releases had no voice acting and barely any animation. Super Valis IV loses most of the cutscenes of its PC Engine counterpart, perhaps due to cartridge size limitations or a reduced art budget.

Custom Robo for the Gamecube only saves the game at fixed points. This is especially notable in the cutscene where Sergei explains the Z Syndicate's true goals, which is so long that it has three save points.

Phantasmagoria, possibly the first Interactive Movie, mostly remembered for how well it exposed the limitations of the genre.

The X-Files Game, which featured the series' actors, probably had the highest production values in its cutscenes, but the use of FMV in-engine proved fatal to playability.

Gabriel Knight 2 is often considered the only Interactive Movie that wasn't a monumental failure.

Time Traveler, a rare example of the FMV shooter, originally an arcade game which was not only FMV, but 3D, using holograms (actually just an optical illusion using parabolic mirrors).

Dragon's Lair, Dragon's Lair II and Space Ace were three arcade titles featuring animation by Don Bluth. While not live action, they were pre-rendered interactive movies, made with traditional cel animation. Recently, these games were re-released as a box-set, playable on any movie DVD player.

The Journeyman Project Part 3: Legacy of Time combined rendered environments with live actors, resulting in one of the most playable examples of the FMV-intensive format. The game was also released on DVD, demonstrating the advantages that medium held. Possibly the last major FMV game.

Parts 1 and 2 had them as well....just in lower quality and less frequently.

A Fork In The Road, in which save points were rare, so you had to wait through FMV scene after FMV scene until you could make any new decisions.

Command & Conquer had FMV mission briefings and prerendered cutscenes. The series swears by them to this day (as do other RTS that used to be made by Westwood).

Starting with Red Alert 2, they used cutscenes that appeared mid-mission (to show a new unit, etc.) In Generals, these in-mission cutscenes became intrusive by taking control of the camera, and preventing you from moving units or ordering them to defend your base from the one or two hostiles that are trashing your defenses and buildings.

Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II: The fighting is a little lame, but when you compared to the Original trilogy (which had gems like the Force Kick) it gets better.

Warhammer 40,000: Final Liberation, a turn-based strategy, used extensive live-action cutscenes to show the results of many of it's battles. The combination of terrible ork costumes and hilarious over-acting by humans is the stuff of legends.

Starfleet Academy and Klingon Academy used FMV for mission briefings, ship-to-ship communications, and important outside-of-mission events. Particularly notable is the fact that the studios brought in the relevant actors from the Star Trek franchise to be in the scenes, including William Shatner, Christopher Plummer, and David Warner.

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is the first game in the Zelda series to use FMV cutscenes as part of its story. In fact, the game uses only one at the very end of the game. The FMV consists of the entire "after the final battle" sequence, the staff credits, and the epilogue. The cutscene may have been prerendered in order to properly implement the transition from the game to the credits, or because the developers didn't have time to implement it. This cutscene runs in realtime on the Wii U version. The Wind Waker's demo cutscene was removed in the HD remake, presumably because the developers didn't want to re-record it. Master Quest and Collector's Edition also feature prerendered cutscenes for Ocarina of Time's ending. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword have prerendered cutscenes for their demo videos, and Skyward Sword, Majora's Mask 3D, and Ocarina of Time 3D's Sheikah Stones hints are prerendered. Skyward Sword's ending credit sequence is prerendered, too, to save on loading (Zelda goes through various locations in the game). Like its predecessor, Twilight Princess HD removes the demo video for presumably the same reasons.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl comes up to nearly two hours of prerendered cutscenes, which doesn't seem like a lot, but it does when you're actually going through the Subspace Emissary (Adventure Mode). In fact, the cutscenes alone are the reason the game is on a dual-layer disc, which offers twice the capacity of a regular Wii game disc.

Games which have in some way avoided or used an alternative to cutscenes include:

The Half-Life series is played from the first person perspective of the protagonist of each game (normally the physicist-turned-saviour-of-mankind Gordon Freeman). Instead of traditional cutscenes, in order to preserve immersion, control is hardly ever taken away from the player, so you can usually still run around the room and mess with the environment while plot-important sequences are going on.

The Metroid Prime series has a few cutscenes (mostly introducing a boss or new area), however the majority of the story is revealed by using a piece of equipment called the scan visor to read various pieces of lore and logs. In fact, Samus rarely even interacts with other characters in Metroid games (beyond killing enemies); Metroid Fusion was the first game in which Samus was seen talking to another character (somewhat ironically, a computer). Metroid Prime 2: Echoes was the first game to have other characters speaking (the Luminoth U-Mos explains much of the story to you), and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption was the first to have voice acting beyond Samus' suit talking to her (though Samus herself never actually speaks). As mentioned in the previous example section, Other M does extensively uses cutscenes, with Samus having voiced speeches even.

Dark Souls is very similar to the Metroid Prime example. The game is notable for how unintrusive the game's story is. There are very few Cutscenes except at the beginning and end of the game, and occasionally at the start of boss battles and when a new arc of the game starts. Most of the story is told through item text and NPC dialogue.

BioShock also has most of its story told through various logs and audio diaries which have been left lying around by the (now dead or insane) inhabitants of the game world. It's particularly notable in that, apart from the intro and ending, it contains only one cutscene, and the fact that it's the one point where control is taken away from you is actually part of the plot itself, if you count out every mention of the phrase "Would you kindly"

Gothic only has a few major cutscenes. All other exchanges use a clever camera that frequently switches being centered on speakers during their specific dialog and utilizes generic NPC body motion for emphasis.

Ys IV: Mask of the Sun has a really long unskippable dialogue prior to fighting Gruda, That One Boss.

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